


and he wished he was a stanley

by hawrthiacoopri



Category: IT (2017), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Gen, angst and shit woohoo
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-22
Updated: 2017-11-22
Packaged: 2019-02-05 09:31:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 662
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12791688
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hawrthiacoopri/pseuds/hawrthiacoopri
Summary: stan had a hard day.





	and he wished he was a stanley

The pin of the record player dropped and Stan heard the lilting voices of the Chordettes scratch out of the record- their voices melded and separated and weaved between eachothers’ calmingly, and he laid back on his bed. 

There was no need to try to stop himself from crying- he’d done plenty of that on the bus, his head hidden in his hands and his face covered in shaking, slim fingers as he wiped messily at his nose. There was no stopping it now. 

Here he was simply freer- he let out a wavering sigh before his tears came again and he turned over to grab a pillow. 

Nothing made sense anymore. He had no reason to cry; he had all reasons not too. His life was great. He was supposed to be great too, he was supposed to be the child prodigy, the small little pretty genius-boy who played the piano for guests and smiled on cue and starched and ironed his own suits. He was supposed to be perfect. That was his part.

HIs part wasn’t to feel too empty to get up, too angry to even talk to anyone for fear of lashing out, too hopeless to try. He wasn’t supposed to feel like this, it wasn’t the script.

Then again, maybe it was.

He could hear his father’s voices in his ears- ‘our family is like a finely tuned machine, we perform at high rates unless tampered with. Not like your mother, Stanley, her family is hardy and strong. You and me, we’re made of different stuff. We’re more delicate.”

(more delicate)

Stan sobbed at the thought. Yes, he was delicate, alright- teachers’ comments sent him spiraling, his nose had broken, what, three times?, his morale was easily ruined by friends and noise. He was too delicate to even leave the house sometimes. 

More of his father’s words came back to him as they did often. The comments on hereditary mental illness, the neuroses, the patterns that showed in his family of OCD and depression and borderline personalities. Yes, the Urises were a goldmine of precocious fuck-ups with high SAT scores, and Stan’s name was soon to be added to the list in the eyes of his relatives. 

It was why he felt like such a failure when he had an Episode (or a Day, as his mother called them)- he wasn’t supposed to be like everyone else. To have bad days or feel bad or slow down for himself, taking breathers wasn’t allowed in his routines. He had always been told he was better, smarter faster- illness was a weakness. Stanley didn’t have weaknesses. He must be perfect

(perfect perfect but what is perfect certainly not you stanley have you seen yourself)

and poised and a genius. Nothing less was good enough. 

Or maybe it was that nothing was good enough, period. 

Standards were always too high. You expect too much, Stanley, you don’t treat people gently enough, Stanley, you think you’re better, Stanley. The kids called him a snob and the adults called him a brat and his parents called him Stanley, just Stanley, but even Stanley sounded wrong. 

Stanley wasn’t a name for a crying little boy who kept his childhood toys and cried to Chordettes songs and missed his old personality, when he could cry every day and not notice that people stared and not care if he did notice, the boy who went home early almost every day of the week. Stanley was a name for a businessman in a suit and tie with a wife and a beautiful lawn and car and a perfect life. Stanley was a name for excellence. Not for the kind of boy who owned it.

Stanley wasn’t his name, no. 

His name was Stan, and yes, he did cry to his mother’s records. He did keep his old stuffed animals. He did wish he was a kid again. 

But oh, how he wished he was a Stanley.

**Author's Note:**

> find me on tumblr @stenbrough


End file.
